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ACIDS IN COFFEE: CAN WE ACTUALLY TASTE THE DIFFERENCE?

In coffee, like in wine, acids are key to our perception of a wide variety of flavours. Can we actually taste the difference between them? Matt Brown from our Coffee Science and Education Centre puts this to the test.

Our everyday interaction with flavour is a complex one. We get passionate over our beliefs on quality, however when asked to identify the flavours we are tasting, a common response is, ‘I know what I like, but I don’t know how to describe it.’ This is especially true for coffee, where there isn’t a strawberry or apple sticking out of the cup to give us a visual clue. It’s the associated memories of these flavours we have to seek out, and for this it takes training.

With all the technology in the world today, the best method to analyse coffee’s quality is still through taste. The method used is called cupping; the practice of grinding roasted coffee into a bowl, sniffing it, adding water, slurping it as loud as you can, and attributing the flavours you taste with a score. One of the benchmark sensory protocols used in cupping is called the Q arabica. This requires a participant to pass more than 20 sensory modules, from identifying aromas, organic acids, and mixtures of sweet, salty and sour tastes. Certified as a Q grader or not, the act of cupping will yield complex flavour descriptions, such as we’ve found in our own cuppings:

I love the phosphoric acidity in bowl #4, it tastes like cola.

I agree, but the malic acidity in bowl #7, it reminds me of a freshly picked fuji apple.

Yes, but the strong citric acid in bowl #3 is so sweet, it’s like grapefruit with sugar on top.

Many of the common descriptions you’ll find when cupping specialty grades of coffee are fruit flavours. Recently, some of our team attended presentations that show conflicting evidence to suggest whether or not people can taste individual acids, especially when mixed with coffee.

So what did we do?

What we at CSEC always do…. Get some numbers!

THE TASTING PANEL: HEY, WHO WANTS TO TASTE SOME ACIDS?

We put together a small panel of tasters, comprising of a mix of consumers, certified Q graders, roasters and baristas. We made them taste citric, malic, acetic, phosphoric and quinic acids, diluted in water – and the same acids again in filter coffee. We sourced these from ‘the coffee professor’. The acids are at a concentration of 1mol/L, and we have been assured they are safe to drink…

The team were not aware what array of acids we were testing for the acids in water. They were just asked to describe a flavour associated to the bowl they were tasting.

In addition to positive identification of the acid, we also asked the tasters to arbitrarily give an intensity rating out of 5.

THE SAMPLES

The panel tasted the individual acids diluted to 3 micrograms acid per gram of water and 6 micrograms/g water (for reference, 1 microgram = 1 millionth of a gram). We used treated brew water, which was tap water run through a filter with a carbon block and ion exchange resin, to suit SCA standards.

The panel then also tasted the 6 microgram acid/gram water solution in brewed coffee. We used our Belaroma Julius blend, which is a medium espresso roast, brewed with 55g roasted, ground coffee to one litre of water. To calibrate the tasters, they were given the same concentration of acid in filtered water with the acids labelled. They were then given the task of matching this acid to the coffee sample spiked with the same acid.

THE RESULTS: CAN WE IDENTIFY ACIDS?

Figure 1: A) Taste results from 3microgram acid/g water, Figure 1: B) 6 microgram/g water C) Coffee with 6 micrograms of acid/g coffee added

What we can see is that acetic acid was more readily identified (67% of tasters correctly identified it as vinegar), and that citric acid was detectable by 50% of tasters (who identified it as lemon). At higher concentration, as expected, acetic acid was more readily identified, as was citric acid.

In terms of intensity, the tasters rated Citric, followed by Malic as the most sour. Acetic was the least intense, even though it was the easiest to ID.

From the above results, it seems that acetic acid and citric acid are the most readily identifiable. Acetic acid might be easier to identify as it also has a volatile component, that can be detected by nasal olfactory senses.

ACIDS IN COFFEE VS ACIDS IN WATER?

When it came to the coffee samples, citric was the most readily identified acid. It was identified correctly in the same frequency as in the acids in water test for the same concentration. As it was a small sample size, this is likely to be coincidental.

In both the coffee & water samples, Quinic and Phosphoric acids remain the needles in the haystack. Very hard to find, even with the honed palettes of the Q graders!

Another point to note, is the people who correctly identified the acetic and citric acids, said they did so by the comparative flavour, and the Malic acid, by the comparative texture to the standard in the bowl of water. So, we tend to ‘feel’ malic acid, rather than ‘taste’ it.

One of the most interesting findings from this study is that acetic acid was detected by fewer panel members in coffee than when it was pure in water. It is likely that the aroma of the coffee overpowers the aroma of the acetic acid at this concentration.  So, a potential outcome of this is that if you accidentally spill some vinegar in your coffee, you’re unlikely to notice it!

The person who identified most samples correctly in this instance, was not a Q grader, but a humble Barista. Clearly showing that tattoos, piercings and ear spacers increase your ability to taste.

CONCLUSION

To answer the question, can we taste specific acids in coffee? For acids in water, the answer is, yes, most of the time for acetic and citric.

As for acids in coffee: aside from citric acid, we don’t think so!

So, the next time you’re at a cupping, surrounded by Q graders or not, and someone describes how delicious that malic acidity is, you can say, ‘I don’t remember adding any Lysergic acid diethylamideto this bowl, but perhaps you mean this coffee reminds me of apples’.

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Barista Training: Is accreditation worth it?

Finding & holding on to quality staff is one of the biggest challenges in hospitality – if not the biggest challenge. After all, these are the people who know how the business operates, help train new staff and have a relationship with regular customers.

Hiring a quality Barista can make or break a business. A problem in Australian cafes is that when an employer advertises for a Barista, qualifications and standards come second to experience. This can lead to baristas with years of experience, who still haven’t learned the basics.

Certifications are not only valuable, but mandatory for many industries – take health care for example. They provide an employer assurance that an individual is fit for the job.

THE PROBLEM WITH CERTIFIED BARISTA TRAINING

While we do have a national standard for basic barista training (called ‘Prepare and Serve espresso coffee’), does it provide all that a café owner needs to fulfill that barista role?

The problem is simply this: many employers don’t respect ‘Prepare & Serve Espresso Coffee’ as a certificate.

I believe this reputation has come about not because of the program itself, but in the way that it has been delivered. Ken Oldfield, an industry vocational teacher and café owner for over twenty years explains “Despite being well written, many Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) cut corners…making it ineffective.”

Similarly, while theoretical understanding is important, it can’t be at the expense of hands-on training. Employers often take certificates as being indicators only of theoretical understanding rather than practical know-how.

Emily Oak (of St Ali Coffee) was one of the people who helped write the original program, adds to this: “I’ve seen the same content taught in eight hours or eight weeks. As coffee is a largely practical and practice based education, a piece of paper is really a reflection of knowledge rather than application or experience.”

WHY DO A COFFEE COURSE AT ALL? ISN’T IT BEST JUST TO LEARN ON THE JOB?

Making a consistently good coffee requires a healthy mix of both practical art and scientific understanding.

While there are many skillful baristas that have never set foot inside a structured training course, this approach usually results in knowledge gaps. Common examples are cleaning, maintenance, equipment calibration and origin information.

Learning on the job is also a slow and costly process. Training on site requires a manager to dedicate their time to do this, usually when the cafe is slow, or after hours. There is only so much time a cafe owner can afford to spare on training before this becomes financially taxing on the business. Having a trusted certification helps to provide staff with better skills and save time for cafe owners.

ACCREDITATION THAT MATTERS TO THE SPECIALTY COFFEE INDUSTRY.

Introducing the Speciality Coffee Association (SCA).

Recently the specialty coffee associations of Europe (SCAE) and America (SCAA) have merged to become the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA). This has now resulted in a new international standard in coffee education called the Coffee Skills Program (CSP).

The new curriculum covers specialties within the coffee industry including; barista skills, coffee brewing, green coffee buying, roasting and sensory skills. Within each of these disciplines, the classes progress from foundations, intermediate to professional levels. On successful completion of these classes, the student attains points towards their diploma.

Not only does the SCA provide higher levels of education than the current Australian standard, but the barista exams have time constraints in order to pass. Addressing the practical skills required to work as a barista.

Is there a need for this level of training in Australia?

Ken Oldfield thinks so: “I believe there is a huge potential for advanced training. Australia has one of the most vibrant coffee cultures in the world. With such a large and growing industry there is a need and demand for higher levels of accreditation.”

It’s true.

For too long, working in the coffee industry has been seen as simply a casual job while studying or pursuing other ambitions. It is important that the coffee industry provides genuine career opportunities, pathways from casual staff > barista > coffee professional. These certifications provide an important part of that structure, backed by a respected, independent industry body.

There is even more value to this certification. Australians love to travel abroad. For the first time, this new program provides an internationally recognised standard to help you get a job anywhere in the world. This global approach also provides the skills and insights into how different cultures around the world prepare and serve coffee – not just espresso.

SCA CERTIFIED + PRACTICAL TRAINING = BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

There are a few coffee roasters in Australia who believe that the SCA’s new Coffee Skills Program is just what Australia needs. Seven Miles included! We recently had our training space accredited by the SCA, and our trainers certified to teach the Barista and Brewers curriculum.

It’s important to balance this new curriculum with lots of practical, which is why we’re keeping our current training program too. Our short practical modules compliment these new standards, and will set the student up to pass the exams.

For more details on our classes, check out

https://www.sevenmiles.com.au/education/training-program/

For more information on the new SCA Coffee Skills Program, visit https://sca.coffee/education/coffee-skills-program

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It tastes of place

For the past few weeks I have been drinking a delicious coffee from Colombia. Each sip of this filter coffee reminds me of the unrelenting efforts involved in achieving this cup. It has an unmistakable full body and crisp acidity, and every sip takes me straight back to the land, but the scene in front of me is worlds away. I have an emotional connection to this coffee, but the consumers near me enjoying their lattes and cold brews in the spring sunshine do not. Their value isn’t tied to the flavours of a geographic location, but to the coffee’s stimulating properties.

Why is this? Most consumers don’t have a discerning relationship with coffee like they do with wine. They will walk into a local bottle shop and have some idea of what different varietals of grape will taste like, or even prefer one regional Australian wine over another, such as Clare Valley over the Barossa, or the Hunter Valley over Margaret River. The may even know what variety these regions are famous for.

WHAT IS TERROIR?

The  flavours of an agricultural product are the consequence of climate, altitude, and soil.

Some Western producers label this combination as “taste of place”, but the French call it “terroir”. To them, it means more than just the flavours of the land, but a concept that’s fundamental to food culture. The pleasure from these flavours signifies a desirable, valuable good, not a disposable commodity. In order to preserve provincial  flavours, the French government invested in a certification called the Appellation d’origine contrôlée. For its wine, producers must respect regional constraints of certain varietals and follow specific processing methods in order to attain this certification. This creates a signature  flavour of a region, preserves tradition, maintains quality standards, and creates a value around a product that is directly linked to its place of origin.

Mike Eggert, Chef and Partner of Pinbone in Sydney, says consumers need to appreciate that terroir is the “diary of a farmer”.

“It’s an honest, unedited, uncensored expression of what [farmers] have lived through for the last week, month, season, or year, and it’s delivered to the consumer through sight, smell, touch, sound, and taste,” 

Mike says,

“I personally don’t think you can call something terroir if you manipulate or alter it from its natural state. To truly experience and express terroir, you must have a hands-off approach. Agriculture that uses aquaculture to substitute rainfall, herbicides and pesticides, or fertilisers, is creating a false economy and anything taken and shown from that earth is so far from terroir, it’s more like Ikea.”

Coffee producer Miguel Fajardo Mendoza from Raw Material Colombia describes terroir as the place he grows his coffee: the altitude, the microclimate, and the soil.

“These three variables, along with shade, help develop any kind of flavours from the land into the cup,” he says. 

Miguel notes that the post-harvest process is crucial to showcasing these three terroir attributes in the cup and that bad post-harvest management could ruin all the flavour attributed to terroir. He adds that Colombia’s coffee farming history is crucial to the region’s successful production it shares today. 

“Fifty years ago, coffee was planted under shade and no chemical herbicides were used. This meant significant micro- organism activity in the soil, and a layer of mulch to provide the needed humidity for this to happen,” Miguel says. “To respect terroir, quality producers need to embed the micro and macro elements into the coffee cherry by farming at higher elevation and in cooler climates in order for coffee cherries to develop slowly - this is what helps fix all of these elements into the seed.” 

THE PROBLEM WITH PRODUCTION

Promoting terroir has been successful in many food industries including French wine and cheese and Canadian maple syrup. However, there is a general problem agriculture faces: we have a vast and growing population, and we need to be fed. The risk of a seasonal low, or the plight of pests and disease, can be hard on farmers to say the least. A by-product of large scale, mono- varietal farming, which can rely heavily on irrigation, pesticides, and fungicides to guarantee crop success, is that our sensory experience of a carrot or an apple becomes limited. Everything tastes the same. This leads to consumers associating fruit and vegetables with a consistent flavour, and when presented with something that’s slightly blemished, or varying from this flavour, we reject it. 

When I asked Mike Eggert what this means for a chef, he says the line is blurred for the worse when people decide that natural elements or free-living growing organisms should conform to consistency. 

“It is the chef’s job to make each dish taste great and look great. This is not a job for the farmers,” he says. “Unlike the farmers, chefs aren’t experiencing the highs and lows of the flavour and seasonal spectrum, or challenged by divine yet imperfect food, and neither are the consumers.” 

Mike says there is unfortunately a lack of farmers within the Sydney area who grow with “true terroir” in mind, who live and ride the seasons, and grow what they want, and not what consumers want. 

“If the demand for baby carrots and micro greens pays the bills, then I say plant and sell them,” he says. “But if they aren’t free to plant for the season and mix up their crops, then they can also never show you some ups and downs or blow you away with seasonal greats. I get 99 per cent of my fruit and vegetables from Flemington and it’s basically the same all year. It’s good but it’s really never great, that’s the difference between Australia and Europe. We get 80 per cent delicious fruit or vegetables, like strawberries, 100 per cent of the year. [Europe] gets 100 percent delicious strawberries, 25 per cent of the year.” 

RESPECTING TERROIR 

In specialty coffee markets there are demands for a certain quality of flavour. Terroir is important, but there are particular varietals achieving “rock star status” and exceptionally high prices. Manycoffee producers are planting these types of varietals in conditions they weren’t meant to. 

Producer Miguel says “growing rare varietals is hard and expensive. Not many farmers understand that such varietals only flourish with adequate care and treatment, and are not an automatic success. “I believe you can plant and achieve great results if you understand the risks and the market. I see a lot of Colombian coffee growers planting varietals such as Geisha, Pacamara, Wush Wush, but they do this in lower altitudes without shade, and think that because they planted this rare varietal, they are going to get US$30 per kilogram,” Miguel says. “If you respect terroir, an average varietal such as Castillo can taste better than a Geisha that hasn’t been tended to appropriately. The terroir that suits each type of coffee for me depends on those variables. For example, I wouldn’t plant a Geisha below 1600 metres above sea level with no shade. I would plant a Tabi varietal below this with no shade and won’t have any issues.” 

Working with nature is always risky business. Coffee, in many ways, is a long way behind other agricultural practices in mitigating this risk. Arabica is being challenged by climate change. Shifting weather patterns and temperatures bring pests, fungus, and disease that thrive in the varying conditions. Developing and planting more resistant hybrids helps to an extent, but this takes time. Another constraint is the lack of genetic diversity of Arabica coffee. A recent study by World Coffee Research put the diversity at 1.2 per cent genetic variance between varieties, and only 0.5 per cent from the commonly grown varieties. This greatly reduces the species’ immunity to disease. 

With the Arabica genome recently sequenced in early 2017, we can only now look at specific coffee breeding for disease resistance while hopefully maintaining quality of flavour. Well, that is so long as that demand for a specialty market exists. 

WHAT WILL WE VALUE IN THE END?

Will terroir in coffee be valued by the masses, like wine? Purveyors of specialty coffee in Australia are certainly trying to promote this. We are slowly seeing a trend in Sydney and Melbourne of consumers drinking more filter coffee from in-season specialty single origins. 

Will terroir still exist in generations to come? Or will we continue to manufacture flavour because it will sell? 

There is an intrinsic value tied to the terroir in all agricultural products. This is why for me, food, wine, or coffee will never be something consumed mindlessly. Quality has nothing to do with opulence or class. It has everything to do with effort and good intent, and sharing the fruits of this labour. 

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Trade & Traceability

I remember conducting a coffee tasting for a large client. The intention was to choose the coffee blend they wanted in their offices Australia wide. We spent two days making and talking about a few of our blends with over two hundred of their staff. The blends we happened to have, had some sort of certification or label associated with them. Fairtrade, organic and supply nation, which helps support Australian indigenous communities. We do tastings like these all the time, and there are always common questions that arise. If this is fair trade, is everything else not? Does organic mean it tastes better? What is this direct trade coffee I’ve been hearing about? Why is coffee so expensive?

These are good questions, it’s always encouraging when people are curious, but it certainly shows that a disconnect exists between consumer, producer and especially the trade in between. This is also true for many of my friends and colleagues within the industry. We talk about quality, we talk about traceability and improving producers’ lives, but there are so many nuances in the middle, from the producer to the roaster. Once you start to scratch the surface it’s easy to understand why a lot of this information isn’t known or not well understood.

From our first event, ‘defining specialty coffee’, topics around the trade and traceability of coffee were raised. To delve deeper into this we invited Stephen Nankervis from Fairtrade Aus and NZ, Oliver Brown from Condesa Co. Lab – a green coffee importer, and Keith Klein from Grace and Taylor, a coffee roaster that focuses on establishing sustainable relationships with coffee producers.

There are a few different models a coffee roaster can use to purchase green coffee. It may change due to volumes and the quality needs of specific markets – all have their risks and constraints.

For Keith at Grace and Taylor, he says that “our goal as a coffee roaster is to buy coffees in an ethical way and very sustainable manner. For us, that means we’ve decided to approach this by buying from the same producers over and over. Granted, we’ve only been doing this for a year and a half, so that hasn’t really happened yet but partnering with people that are able to give us the traceability and connections to the producers that we want to work with, and then look at buying those same coffees each season, paying a fair price for those coffees, and bringing them in. We’re limiting ourselves to a couple of producers that we deal with. If one year they have a bad crop that puts us in a very difficult position, especially if we want to buy that coffee again and again. So the risk is quite big, but for us it’s about building those sort of long term relationships.”

Oliver from Condesa says that for an importer there are many levels of risk. “This may sound a bit of an odd challenge to face, but I think, for an importer, it’s very difficult to get right, this whole thing of importing coffee. And you might know three or four amazing origins that you want to work with, and you might know ten or fifteen different incredible farmers within those origins, but knowing that you’ve actually got a market for those is a really big question mark. I think, for me, a challenge linked to that risk, of getting the right coffee, being able to sell or not, is directly linked to quality. For me, this is fundamental; that’s the driver for me: making sure that quality stays all the way through that chain.”

In terms of sustainability Steve says “the Fairtrade model is around cooperatives and community. It’s about the community as a whole, because if one single farmer has a great year and one single farmer has a terrible year, that’s often just happenstance. Whether it be rainfall, right side of the hill, left side of the hill, or just picked it right. Sometimes it’s more than that; sometimes it’s nothing more than that. And if you’ve got a direct relationship where you’re just buying off this farmer, when they have a bad year, you just then go and move on to another farmer. The roaster doesn’t necessarily mind that the first farmer’s now not going to have a direct market for their coffee. But, if they’re part of a collective or a cooperative they’ve then got some ability to offset that risk.”

For our non-industry readers out there, a coffee cooperative may be responsible for a coffee growing regions’ processing, grading, quality control, marketing, sales and exporting. An estimated 70-80% of the world’s total coffee production is cultivated by some 10 million small-scale farmers, cultivating less than 10 hectares of land. This hasn’t solved our consumer’s dilemma – with all the different labels on a bag of coffee, what do you support? If you’re going to charge a premium for a label that sells ethics, it’s important that a certification is transparent.

Steve mentioned that “A company in America released a coffee and put a direct trade stamp on it, but they actually couldn’t identify the origin of the coffee. So I’m not quite sure how direct it was, but no one was able to actually challenge it, because there was nothing they could challenge it against.” This is because there are no clearly defined standards in direct trade. Each trade relationship is unique and doesn’t require a written standard. “If someone sticks a Fairtrade Mark on something, and we can’t trace it and they’ve got no relationship with us or with the farmer or with the trader, we can actually say, “Well, that’s not actually Fairtrade certified coffee. It’s easy to tell the stories of projects Fairtrade work with. I can pick out one from PNG or wherever and it’s quantifiable because it’s measured every year, it’s independently audited, the auditors are independently audited, and so it goes. You’ve got a standard that you can stick to and it’s traceable, and it’s transparent.”

Oliver commented on certifications saying, “In my point of view, certification helps to quantify. It helps to give quantification and justification as to why we’re buying these coffees. I don’t necessarily think there is one label that is the ideal, but each label in its own part helps to give guidance to the buyer, to the customer. And in an industry where we’re not very good at getting our message across to the customer, I think it helps give some clarity. So for me, whatever label you look at, each one of them has massive benefits. And they’re an integral part of what we do. And I think we need to get behind them and understand them, and I think there needs to be a bit more education about what each of them are, because I think there is sometimes a lack of understanding there, to put it mildly. Rainforest alliance: some people think that means quality, where it has nothing to do with quality. Even Fairtrade organic doesn’t necessarily define a quality in the coffee. And for me, a big part of sustainability is quality, because customers will always come back if the quality is there.”

Steve clarifies that “We work a lot with the farmers to get them to understand their agronomy better, to get them to understand how to pick cherries better, to get them to understand fermenting and washing. We run cupping trainings for them, so they can understand what the roasters and the traders are looking for when they’re buying their coffee. Part of our education as an organisation is to focus on quality. It’s very important to look after society. It’s very important to look after the planet, but if you’re not making money you’re doing it wrong. As a producer, you will most likely make more money if you produce better quality.”

This seems to be a consensus among the panellists, that quality is an important factor to sell coffee and help have a sustainable farm. A common comment, as stated at the beginning of this article, is that many general consumers think that coffee is already expensive. It’s a topic that comes up in industry discussions frequently, how do we get the consumer to value and pay more for quality coffee?

Keith raises this; “The big thing, and this is coming back to what we’ve all been talking about, is how do you sell that to the consumer? Calling it a specialty coffee and charging a higher price for quality is … It seems to work, in a certain sense, but at the same time we get this label, especially here in Sydney, of hipster baristas, right? “Oh, you’re selling a cup of coffee for six dollars. That’s absolutely outrageous.” I think there’s got to be a quantifiable reason for that. And if it’s quality, it’s really got to show. It can’t just be that this is a rare coffee; it’s got to be that when you taste this coffee, you’ve never had anything like it before. Or that you can actually show that this much more was paid for this coffee because of these circumstances, or this much more was paid for this coffee because that’s how we want to drink coffee. And I think in Australia we don’t do that very well, at all.”

On this Oliver says “traceability’s a fundamental part of getting people to understand why coffee’s special, why they should pay more for it. It’s a huge part of coffee, and I think it is going to become an even bigger part, and it will no longer be easy to sell a regional coffee without knowing exactly which producers make up that regional coffee. It’s the story, it’s the backbone upon which coffee’s sold.”

Keith says that “To me, it’s super important, but what I think is that it’s not a sales pitch that we do well in the café. You serve them the coffee, and you tell them it’s from this region, or it’s from this farmer, or whatever. To most consumers, that is just absolute jargon. Like, ‘here’s a natural Yirgacheffe’, and they just go, what the hell are you talking about? I don’t how to pronounce that word, I don’t know what you mean … and for a lot of people, it scares them off.” Steve says “One of the key things from a Fairtrade point of view is we have producer profiles. And our producer profile will have information about how many people are in the cooperative, when the cooperative started, what they do, their altitude, what sort of coffee they’re growing, what the flavours you should expect in the cup, what their recent grading scores have been. Then they’ll talk about what the benefits have been from being part of Fairtrade. What they’ve invested their Fairtrade Premium in.

The reality is that people remember stories. Look at the indigenous culture, the whole culture was passed down through stories, and people remember them. People don’t necessarily remember facts and figures, and they’ll wonder why you’ve asked them to look at the natural Yirgacheffe, when they just don’t get it. You’re talking about things that mean something to you, but don’t mean something to them. This group of villagers in PNG that have now got taps and running water, they can understand things like that. And they’ll remember those kinds of stories. You have to talk about tangible, relatable things.”

Surprisingly the consensus reached by our panellists was not a specific quantifiable metric, nor was it a particular label. The overarching theme that cut through was the need to connect more with the human aspect of the coffee trade, specifically by finding and sharing the stories of those whom work to cultivate and sell the raw product. Intrinsically tied to this is quality. It seems unanimous amongst the panel that if the ethical story isn’t linked to a quality cup, then the actions become somewhat disingenuous. As an industry we need to try harder to bring the human element back to what has become a common commodity.

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On Water

Wherever water flows on earth you are sure to find life. From humans to plants, water provides the perfect carrier of nutrients to cells. The slight negative charge from its oxygen, and slight positive charge from its hydrogen makes water an attractive molecule to bond to. Because of this polarity our world’s most abundant solvent is never found in its pure form, unless we have manufactured it that way. From its path from the sky when it rains, to our homes, water comes in to contact with many elements, dissolving minerals and changing its nature of interaction. In cities we treat it for consumption and domestic use, but for specific commercial applications water needs to be measured and manipulated to work efficiently and prevent damage to equipment.

For coffee, this can be a challenging feat. We have this machine that has high power, creates and delivers hot pressurised water and steam, contained in metal boilers that flows through really small jets, just to be able to make this delicious, concentrated brew we call espresso. There are common elements in water that when put under these conditions can cause damage to the machine, or even worse, destroy tasty flavours in your coffee.

In order to have tasty coffee and happy machines we need to test the water to ascertain the general hardness minerals, carbonate hardness and chlorides, along with the pH. General hardness are elements in the water such as Calcium, magnesium, sodium, copper, iron, etc. The ones that are naturally in the highest concentrations, and the ones we really need to pay attention to are Calcium and Magnesium. These two positively charged ions increase the water’s ability to dissolve organic molecules, meaning they help to extract flavour from coffee.

Carbonate hardness is the measure of the water’s ability to stabilise the pH when acids or bases are introduced. The main buffer in water is bicarbonate, which is formed from the Carbon Dioxide the water molecule picks up in the atmosphere on its way down to earth. Bicarbonates are amphiprotic molecules, meaning that they can act both as acids or bases, gaining or giving protons. When Carbon Dioxide dissolves into water it becomes carbonic acid, it will typically lose a proton to become bicarbonate, and lose one more to become carbonate. If there are high concentrations of Carbonate and Calcium in the water then the system will favour the formation of calcium carbonate - lime scale. Remember those really small jets the water flows through in the espresso machine…. lime scale loves to deposit in them. The pressure change of the water at the jet promotes the formation of calcium carbonate. Also, those high powered heating elements used to keep the brewing water and steam at a stable temperate, love to bring these components together. These deposits of scale will lead to reduced water flow and also heating inefficiency in your machine. Luckily, we can remove protons from this bicarbonate system by adding acids. Typically a citric acid solution is used to remove the calcium carbonate from the espresso machine. There are different water filtration systems that look to remove the calcium and other general hardness minerals from the water so we reduce this build up of scale in the machine. As we mentioned before, Calcium and Magnesium help to extract flavour from coffee. Water that has had too many of these minerals removed will result in weak, low yielding extractions of the coffee’s flavour. Too much will result in scale. The balance must be found!

Chlorides are commonly found in water and will bind to magnesium, calcium and sodium to form salts. Chlorides can be highly corrosive to metals when the pH of the water is acidic. If there are impurities in the manufacture of the metal, this is the most likely place for corrosion to occur. It’s important to mention that water filtration technologies, such as softeners that reduce the Calcium and bicarbonate content of the water, reduce the water’s ability to buffer. This in turn reduces the pH of the water which can lead to water becoming corrosive. A pH below 6.5 is not recommended for this reason, also because it is unfavourable for extraction.

The pH scale indicates the potential of the Hydrogen in the water. The pH of the water is an important measurement as it can be a good indication of how reactive the system is. A pH of 7 is neutral, and with the addition of an acid or a base, this will move. A lower number indicates a more acidic solution, a higher number the more basic the solution. Each whole number difference in measurement is one order of magnitude, meaning a measurement of 6 has a 10x difference in hydrogen ion concentration than 7. Large changes in pH will cause the mood of the water to change, making the push and pull of reactions of certain elements more aggressive with measurements either side of 7. Bicarbonates buffer this reaction as mentioned before, but they also buffer tasty acids in coffee, turning them into their conjugate base, which can taste flat.

To achieve the right balance of water to make tasty coffee and maintain the health of your espresso machine, water must be measured on a site by site basis, to see what technology will best suit the conditions. Water needs to be retested periodically as the water will change depending how it’s being treated and the source it’s coming from.

For an excellent guide, and more in depth information on water we recommend: Water for Coffee https://waterforcoffeebook.com/products/water-for-coffee and working with a good water filtration company such as WFS in Melbourne http://www.waterfilterservices.com.au/

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On Specialty

What Makes a Coffee ‘Specialty’? Coffee is a complex thing. It has over one thousand constituents in its chemical makeup, forty or so of which are in the threshold for our detection, which is why it can be challenging to articulate our sensory experience of it, let alone universally define its quality. With any quality-driven product, there must be care and value all along the chain of production to the consumer. With coffee, defining specialty is by no means less complex than its chemistry. To shed light on each of these steps, and to attempt to define specialty for coffee, we held a discussion with a panel of industry leaders who specialise in different aspects of the coffee industry. Let’s frame and talk to the key topics from the discussion. How beliefs about coffee are created All problems in the world, it seems, are induced by human beliefs. This poses a challenge when trying to agree on quality of flavour. Quality is not a hardwired or fixed thing that comes inherent in each of us. It is emotionally contextual, which means that your beliefs around it strengthen with repeated experience in a certain emotional context. For example, I have a friend who started drinking filter coffee when he came to visit. He was only in Sydney for three months, and the filter coffee here was vastly different from where he grew up. He associated it with something cheap that you brewed at home, from beans you purchased from the supermarket, that were already pre-ground for your convenience. In Sydney, a specialty-grade filter coffee can taste of anything from citrus fruits to cocoa, from cherries to chocolate. At first he couldn’t understand why we would drink such swill. My friends and I included him in our weekly brunch club where he joined us in drinking filter coffee from various countries of origin, and from many different coffee roasting companies. Along with this, he made strong connections, true friends and happy memories during his stay. This created direct associations to the flavours of specialty-grade filter coffee. This is now his reference for quality. With the flavour and quality of coffee around the world being so varied, a lot of the time when you go travelling you may simply find no enjoyment in the provincial preparation of the beverage. It’s just poles apart from your expectations of the product you’ve experienced and named ‘coffee’. What I mean is, if you’re used to drinking a bucket of filter coffee that has been sitting on the hot plate of a brewer for 6 hours, that has been roasted to ensure a lower acidity and enhanced bitterness and body, and you come to Sydney or Melbourne and are presented this cup of single origin, naturally processed coffee that tastes like cherries and chocolate, this can challenge you to comprehend this beverage as coffee. Without the happy, repeated context that my friend had, home you would go to announce that you just couldn’t get a good cup of coffee in Australia. Without a broad range of experience from coffee all around the world, your beliefs of quality are provincial – learned from your immediate environment. This cultural disparity of flavour is the first thing to attempt to disseminate when measuring quality. Measuring quality Leading up to our public discussion, we interviewed people in the greater coffee community to see what specialty coffee is for them. When asked how to measure specialty, there was talk of attributing a number to the quality of a coffee. There are two main systems for this out there in coffee world – the COE (Cup of Excellence) and the CQI’s (Coffee Quality Institute) Q Grade. In essence, you take certain aspects of flavour and attribute them a score – acidity, body, balance, etc. Your calibration points are reference samples around taste and smell, along with the person teaching you. When you compare scores with your teacher after tasting a coffee, you can adjust accordingly. Taste another coffee and repeat until there is a similarity in your scores. For this to work, your scoring must be kept private until the tasting is complete. The teachers have to be calibrated, and there must be standards in place for each step of the coffee’s preparation. The SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) has these standards for green coffee, cupping, water quality and brewing, with roasting still to come. To start off our discussion with the panel of coffee professionals, we asked of this process. What are these numbers for? How important is it to be able to measure quality objectively? Emily Oak of Sensory Lab spoke to the Q grade system, noting that it’s a two-tiered thing. It’s a quality stamp based on a numerical assessment of coffee, and it was originally devised to create a language between producers and buyers, so that people could rate coffee in different places and theoretically have a more objective understanding of what quality is, and the value attributed to that coffee. Tuli Keidar, general manager of Mecca coffee, mentioned that he has seen the Q grading system work best at the green coffee exporter level. If an exporter or roaster wants to work with a farm, they need to give them some level of objective feedback, which aligns with a certain price point. What a farmer wants, if they are quality-orientated and aligned with a specialty market, is to get better prices for their coffee. If you cup a coffee and it’s come out as an 83, then you communicate to the farmer that if they did x, y, z in their processing, this would lead to an 85. Hopefully they will invest in their production and that would achieve a higher price for their coffee. What you can find, however, at a specialty coffee auction, is that if a coffee has ranked well objectively, it may not fetch a higher price than a coffee that has scored a little lower. This, as mentioned earlier, is probably due to cultural ideas around a quality of flavour. Recently, there has been a landmark tool created to assist with this, and other fields of research within the coffee industry. The SCAA flavour wheel, with the WCR (World Coffee Research) sensory lexicon, gives us a language to be able to articulate what we do or don’t like about a coffee. The lexicon has 110 attributes to articulate a coffee’s flavour, each with a description, matched to a reference sample, with a 15-point intensity marker in order to score that attribute. Studies can now be conducted into cultural ideas around quality, where people can define what flavours seem to be a preference based on the lexicon. Maybe soon, as Tuli mentioned, better objective communication can go back to the producer with specific flavour requirements around quality, with the hope of helping them fetch a higher price. Industry evolution of specialty coffee Are we closer to our definition of specialty in coffee? To recap; we prepare a coffee in a certain way and it scores 80 and + based on the SCAA standards. We articulate cultural flavour preferences and intensities based on the lexicon, and that’s pretty much it, right? Sean McManus, owner of Neighbourhood, an espresso bar in Surry Hills, says that specialty is just a word. That as soon as everyone starts to do specialty, then it is no longer special. The point of specialty is to be constantly striving for a higher level. Specialty dies the second you wipe your hands of it and think it’s done. One of the platforms that has aided in the evolution of the specialty coffee industry is the WBC (World Barista Championship). This stage has set many trends and has provided the opportunity for baristas to tell the story of their passions – from the farmer, to new technologies and research that have bettered the quality of flavour of coffee. Sasa Sestic, owner of Ona Coffee, and the 2015 World Barista Campion, says you can see the fruits of this: every time you walk into a specialty coffee shop, you see an EK43 grinder on every bench, and that was a result of Matt Perger’s competition. Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood’s presentation on water for coffee got Sasa obsessed with water, as it has for many. A note on evolution in general, is that its speed and form are shaped by the environment and competition. When we interviewed Sharon Jan, the green coffee buyer for Seven Miles Coffee Roasters, she mentioned that yes, it seems that specialty coffee is measured as 80 and + coffee, but a lot of the time when creating products for Australian specialty markets it will demand a higher level of specialty - coffees that score 85 and +. Has the expectation of specialty coffee in Australia already shifted? Has the competition and amount of cafes, especially in Sydney and Melbourne, shaped this higher level of expectation from a specialty coffee consumer? For our definition, it seems that we somehow need to take this into account - specialty will evolve at different rates in different places around the world. This axiom of periodic review due to evolution needs to exist in order for specialty to change and still be measured. It’s important to state that what we have been talking about here, this objective scoring, is the quality measurement of a coffee on a cupping table. The point where a coffee is selected by the roaster, or the assessor. The question from here is, does a specialty coffee have to be roasted a certain way for it to remain special, or should there be set brewing parameters for a barista to follow? This topic wasn’t explored in too much detail by our panel, and I think this will inevitably be a discussion on its own. Flavour: more than numbers What Sean and Emily did highlight is that when a barista is measuring a coffee, you are not chasing a number. The number or measurement of a refractometer, or a timer, or a set of scales, or a thermometer - is just that: numbers to show you where you are. They give you repeatability and a reference point. Flavour, however, is king. In our interviews, it seems specialty coffee wasn’t just about scoring, measuring and assessing quality. It has a sense of responsibility, a story of transparency, traceability and sustainability. We asked the panel their views to see if this was true. On the importance of traceability, John Russell Storey, marketing manager of Cofi-Com, one of Australia’s largest green coffee importers, says that traceability is just part of their business. They have to know where the coffee comes from, to visit origin to ensure that the next crop is going to be available, that the farmer hasn’t ripped up the trees to plant a crop that will be more valuable. You have to make sure that the relationship with the farmer is going to be long-term. In order for a farmer to produce a specialty coffee, you have to convince them that the bucket of cherries they pick off the tree, which has to be sorted rigorously to remove the defects in order to meet that quality score, will in fact fetch an appropriate price despite the lower yield. At the end of the day, they need to feed their families and send their children to school. Traceability is important in a specialty market also for identifying things that have gone wrong. In some countries, you can trace coffee back to the individual trees they came from. If you taste an exceptional coffee, it’s important to be able to identify which trees it is from so we can cultivate off that. Sasa says that traceability is very important to specialty coffee. It gives direct feedback from consumer, to roaster, to producer. If you have that traceability, you can help invest and work on different techniques in order to raise the quality of the coffee. This, for him, develops long and strong personal relationships with the farmers. Tuli had a different take on the importance of traceability, especially in the context of direct trade relationships. What these relationships do is ensure transparency all along the chain from farmer to the consumer. Just because a consumer is paying a premium price and it is being sold as a specialty product, doesn’t mean the money is being fairly distributed along this chain. If you are marketing your product as traceable, if you’re putting the name of the farm on a coffee to help achieve a premium price, but you don’t know if they were being fairly paid, then that is unethical. So it seems traceability should also provide accountability. John, agreeing with this, added the point that people who are going in to origin and buying direct need to know who they are cutting out, and what income they are relying on. You have to take advice from the people on the ground locally, that aren’t transient, as to where the money is best invested. A lot of the time, just giving the farmer more money isn’t the solution. What they find is that building a school or providing medical supplies is far more beneficial. For Sean, from a retail perspective, the more you can know about a product the better. With coffee, for him, it shouldn’t be that hard. You are only dealing with four to six products per month. If you can’t inform or sell it to a consumer as well as a TV salesman can sell you a plasma TV, then you’re pretty lazy. To talk to the feeling you get in the industry, that specialty coffee is sustainable, Sasa pointed out that with the farms he deals with, approximately 6–10% of their crop is of specialty grade. For a farm to survive on specialty alone, he feels that it depends a lot on the cost of production. In some countries, the yield is significantly lower, and therefore impossible. Another point from Tuli and Emily is that climate change will influence yield and the cost of production significantly. Crops are moving up the hills to cooler climates, and the raised cost of production will require everyone to pay more for specialty coffees. Selling specialty coffee It seems that the motivation to sell specialty coffee is to ensure that we have an impact all the way down the supply chain. That everyone is being paid fairly. If people are willing to pay a little more and understand the value of that product, then we should make it approachable for them. Select certain coffees, roast it a certain way, so long as we can have that impact. On this question of selling specialty coffee, there seemed to be a general feeling of elitism that comes from the baristas in specialty coffee. Our professionals all agreed that there is no need for this arrogance. It offers no assistance to promote the value of specialty coffee. Sean feels it’s important to gauge your customer and not impose your beliefs upon them. If they enjoy a large cappuccino with two sugars, then respect that and make sure they are comfortable in their decision. If you have a customer that wants to geek out, then bring them behind the bar and share an experience with them – taste a coffee together and take them on that ride. Emily says that people don’t want to be forced to do things in a particular way, to be told what to do when they walk into a café. There’s no point in having the best coffee and the most beautiful espresso bar if you’re going to tell them to drink from this and stand over there. Tuli shared his most memorable coffee experience with us, saying that the coffee he had at Campos some 8 years ago, which was combined with great service, the showmanship of the baristas, the music, the whole sensory experience around it was what made it really special. It can be easy for a barista to get lost in the fascinating details of coffee and forget that a coffee house is not a place to deconstruct flavours. It’s a place to feel good, to have human experience and to be pampered by charming people. We need to think about what makes coffee valuable, why it is we drink it, and why it is we have been drinking it for hundreds of years. A final definition? Defining specialty coffee isn’t hard, but humans agreeing on that definition certainly is, and herein lies the complexity. An average consumer isn���t going to go down the rabbit hole to understand this, or calibrate their senses just to enjoy a product. They just want something that tastes good to them and makes them feel good while they’re drinking it.

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Delicious isn’t easy

A common misconception I feel with flavour is that people think it exists in the cup of coffee or the glass of wine. Indeed, two people consuming the same bottle of wine are in fact consuming the same chemical information, but as you are aware, not only will one persons enjoyment of the wine differ, but when asked to describe what it tastes like they will come up with different descriptions. Our experience of flavour is individual, but to a certain extent, trainable so we can have a common articulation. A question that has arisen with my own studies into defining a specialty food product is that if we don’t have a word to describe our flavour experience, let’s say because we have never experienced that flavour, to the taster, does that flavour exist? Also, when you do become conscious of a flavour, can this effect your perception of quality?

I remember the first time the flavour of a coffee completely blew my mind – it was an Ethiopian Harrar Blue Horse. I had never had a coffee taste so syrupy, vibrant, spicy and sweet before. It was a very concentrated brew indeed – for the baristas out there, there was definitely a higher weight of ground coffee then resulting espresso. The brewing time would have been around 35 seconds, and the amount of coffee that was in the porta-filter basket was definitely damaging the shower screen. That was some 12 years ago now, and if I were to be served something like that today I would turn my nose up at the lack of education of the barista. There was nothing complex about it. It would have tasted more delicious as a sauce accompanying my steak, packed full of acid and sugar – The lack of refinement and complexity of flavours compared to an espresso coffee today is worlds apart. The thing is that back then that was my association with quality. That’s all I knew coffee flavour could be. When coffee roasting styles and brewing ratios started to change, I didn’t like this new wave of flavour – it was far too disconnected from what I was used to. It wasn’t until I started to participate in coffee cuppings, sensory judging and taste modulations could I pick up the myriad of flavours in a chemically very noisy beverage. Let’s make a correlation with our hearing. We have the ability with our hearing to pick up on a single conversation among many in a noisy café by focusing on the tone of someone’s voice. We find it easier to focus on a tone the more unique it is – unique, that is, to what an individual would deem to be normal. It is even easier to pick out our friends’ voice from the crowd as we are used to talking to them all the time. If you walked into a noisy café and closed your eyes, do you think you could count the number of people that are talking? Again, you could easily recognise your friends and the people with strong accents or tones, but still, you would miss quite a few. If you then become friends with all those people in that café, I bet you would be able to pick out a few more. This is the point – until you are conscious and have a relationship with the individual flavours in a cup of coffee, it can be very hard to know how many people or even who is in the room. Just like with meeting more and more people, with new experience you may come to realise that the friends you thought you liked, are really actually shitty people, and that there are indeed quieter, more beautiful souls out there, so long as we know how to listen.

The problem with getting a consumer to pay a higher price for a specialty coffee, I feel will always remain – the problem is that coffee is chemically very complex. It’s not just that there are over one thousand individual chemical components, of which around forty are in a high enough concentrations for us to be able to perceive, but the untrained senses do not taste in individual elements. We sense our world in patterns. It takes time and training to be able to pick different types of acidities, aromas and other things out of that cup. All the untrained can do is point out their friends and the loudest characters in the room. It’s sour, it’s sweet, it’s bitter, it’s strong, it’s smooth, it’s fruity, it’s earthy, – or, it reminds me of…. If I made the Ethiopian Harrar of a decade ago, would it no longer be delicious? Have our senses evolved in such a short space of time? No. It’s me that has evolved, and have experienced more of what the world has to offer. If you own a café and you change your coffee making standards - new roasting style, different type of extractions, new brewing targets - you may have the challenge of your long standing staff and customers not liking this change. Hire a new staff member and the problem goes away. Would a generation of baristas and cafe owners need to retire before the new quality of today that is being promoted and taught by the world of specialty coffee, becomes the norm? This still doesn’t mean that coffee today is of a higher quality of flavour than that Ethiopian Harrar of a decade ago. Put the new and the old next to each other, and different people, just like with anything, will have their preference.

My definition of specialty coffee, or any specialty food industry is that it is a quality driven, non-static thing. Ideas and ideals around quality of flavour change with new research, education, and technology. I guess you could say that quality is a cultural thing. You pursue it because you believe it to be true, for the love of the process, not for the money. I feel it is important for a producer of a special product to define why they think it is special and set up a measure for that quality, giving justification for the higher price, and make a change when the company agrees that in fact we believe there is a better way.

For retailers of specialty coffee at café level, the question is, what can you do to convince a consumer who just wants a cup of coffee that it truly is special, and justify why they should pay more than they may expect. Especially as they probably have a different expectation on what quality should be.

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The value of it all

I remember working in a café in Surry Hills with a good friend of mine, Jimmy. We were the only two people in the café that touched the espresso machine. He didn’t make bad coffee, I certainly couldn’t tell the difference between his and mine – we had a recipe – this much ground coffee goes in, this much espresso comes out, and this is our brewing time. We would then make small adjustments to this recipe to make the flavours a little more balanced on any given day. I always found it strange that on Jimmy’s days off, many regular customers and staff would always say to me that they preferred my coffee, that Jimmy’s coffee was just a little sour or had a bitter taste. They would insist that I show him how I do it. As far as I could see we were doing everything the same. Curious, I tested this theory. On the days that Jimmy and I were both working I would be on the machine, a regular customer would come in to order coffees for everyone in their office, and instead of them waiting for the order to be made I offered to deliver their it to them. Off they went, Jimmy would get on the machine and make the coffees, and I waddled down and delivered their order. When they came in the next day and I asked how they enjoyed the coffee, you get the usual ‘you make the best coffee Matt, please show Jimmy how to make it like you’. I really don’t believe Jimmy made better or worse coffee than I did. So what was it about me that they preferred – what was wrong with Jimmy?

At Belaroma, when we are setting standards for how our coffees should taste and the recipes we recommend, all our tastings are done blind. No one knows what they are tasting, you just have to mark a scoresheet on certain aspects of flavour for the coffee that is in front of you. There is no discussion amongst your peers to sway each others judgement – this is very important. From time to time we do these tastings for large companies in the same manner, and the results are as you may presume. Everyone has different tastes, differences in what they enjoy for various reasons. We recently did the same sort of tasting with three groups of approximately ten people. We tasted three different blends of coffee. This time however the tasting wasn’t blind – we told the consumers what they were tasting and they could openly discuss what they did and didn’t like about each blend. The first group unanimously chose Blend #1, the second group blend #2 and the third group chose blend #3. If these results occurred in a blind tasting, then there would be some sort of obvious fault in the preparation of the coffee. This was not the case in this instance. This does demonstrate however, how our choices can be altered or influenced by others. – Maybe this is what happened to poor Jimmy. Maybe it wasn’t the coffee, maybe they just didn’t like his haircut. I know I didn’t. This phenomenon is experienced all the time – it’s called mental priming. An idea, image or belief goes to the forefront of your mind, and you affirm your beliefs based on your immediate interactions. First to demonstrate what I mean by priming. You may have noticed when you go to buy a new car – you have decided that you want a Mazda 3. All of a sudden, that’s all you see. You didn’t realise how many Mazda 3s there were on the road – it’s something you don’t really think about or perceive until there is a reason to think about it. Next is office gossip, someone’s negative opinions, or the perception that some people just don’t work as hard as others – this especially occurs from different departments in a business – some people have jobs where they may not need to come into the office very much, so it may look like they’re just swanning in at 10am and have been relaxing all morning – especially if you have had a really busy or stressful morning. The second you vent your frustration to your co workers, you have primed them – the next time anyone sees you swan in at 10am looking relaxed when they are stressed, you have affirmed their belief. One last example – the stereotype ‘Volvo drivers are the worst drivers’. Notice three instances of bad driving from someone driving a Volvo and it’s stuck, they are officially the worst drivers on the road. How do we not fall into a priming trap of false beliefs? The Volvo driver myth is an easy one to dispel. Instead of a Volvo, change the car in your mind to Audi and you’ll notice that they are just as bad. For your work colleagues who obviously don’t work as hard as you do – ask them about their job, ask them how they can seem so relaxed, maybe they have some advice for you, or if you’re convinced that they just have an easy job maybe you should apply for it. Let’s be honest, unless you walk in someone else’s shoes, we don’t really know what their day to day is like. For barista preference it’s easy – just do some blind tastings and see if you can pick who made your coffee. See if in fact your cappuccino with 3 sugars has a hint of Matt-ness or Jimmy-ness to it. – I’m not saying this may not be the case, but until you prove your beliefs wrong, maybe try to focus on how nice a person Jimmy is, despite his terrible haircut.

This demonstrates that our perception of quality and our values around coffee don’t come down to an objective consistency of the products chemical composition. So what shapes our values? What will cause us not to enjoy or value something?

In a previous post I wrote about my experience at a café in Paris. Even though the coffee I was served didn’t display the quality of flavours I knew that coffee could, it was still the best cup of coffee I’ve had as the people in the café attended to all my emotional needs that day. They made me feel at home in a foreign country. I think this is an important thing to recognise, it has certainly helped me a lot over the years when starting as a new barista at various well established cafés. I find it funny seeing people’s unease when they see someone new making their coffee. You really have to build trust with people otherwise no matter how good your coffee objectively is, they won’t like it. For the first few weeks I’m always on guard. Taking note of who the regulars are, remembering their names and coffee orders, but also ensuring they feel like you’re going the extra mile just for them – ‘how is the temperature?’, ‘how is the strength?’. After two or three goes you’ve generally got them, and the funny thing is you may not have altered the way you make the coffee at all – so long as the café you’re working in has some clear targets as to how they want their coffee brewed you shouldn’t differ too much from any other proficient barista in the café. Making the customer feel like you’re personally attending to them, making them believe you’re doing something special just for them – it’s all part of attending to human emotional needs. Being hospitable. Who here doesn’t enjoy a good hug when they’re feeling down. Not everyone shares the same values however, there are many reasons for choosing to go to a particular café – speed of service, they remember your order, convenience, quality of product, space, aesthetics, etc. You certainly can’t please everyone. I don’t like cafés that are too cramped or busy – I purposely go to a cafe when they open as there are less people. I can enjoy a well made filter coffee that the baristas have just adjusted for the day, and I can sit in peace while I read a good book. I also love to fine dine. I save my money then indulge on a dinner that can cost up to $250 per head, couple this with the company of a good friend and this for me is something to be cherished. By the same token, if I wasn’t expecting to pay that much then that would most likely shift my values. Even though the food had the same objective chemical qualities, there are emotional attributes that are just as important as knowing how to season and cook the food correctly. For some, that may just be a typical Wednesday evening and the money doesn’t effect their experience at all. From cultural and family beliefs to your education and wealth, the context in which we grow up shapes so much of our values. Our values do however, just like our food choices, change with context. I used to adore the smell of Guerlain Shalimar, it used to be the smell of a safe, loving and happy home. The fragrance my partner used to wear, and I used to get welcomed with every time I walked through the door. How quickly that changed when she left me and moved to the Bahamas with that wealthy, handsome bastard! – oh how I wish I could love that delightful fragrance again. This can happen with anything. Your financial status may change – if your business fails and you have to sell all your assets and live on a very tight income, or maybe your health is compromised and you have to live on a very restrictive diet, no more coffee or alcohol – these things force change. You gain a new value for the little things. You find other little luxuries to savour. Your social groups change, you acquire new hobbies and these new things in your immediate environment shift your values. Did you really like going out on a bender every weekend? Wasting a day to recover?

I love teaching coffee classes that focus on our senses – making people conscious and mindful about what they put into their mouths. Getting them to try and describe their experience and using a tasting sheet to fill out objective scores on certain attributes of the coffee’s flavour. Being able to pick these aspects of flavour out of a very noisy cup of coffee makes you a little more objective with your tastes – it takes the Jimmy-ness taint out of the cup.

Why are our flavour choices so emotional?

Our sense of smell is so intertwined with our memories, our emotions, that the flavours we enjoy and detest become a part of us. ‘How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it.’ – Richard P Feynman. Our brains have this amazing ability to take each piece of information – sight, smell, sound, texture, taste – and convert it into a single experience. We are conscious that it’s coming from the one singularly complex source of information, being the food that we put in our mouths. What we probably aren’t conscious of is that our memory is intertwined with how the context around that food made us feel. If Jimmy happened to upset you as you’re drinking the coffee he prepared for you, Jimmy has just put a “sour” taste in your mouth, or he has made you a little “bitter”. Just like my ex-girlfriend’s perfume, the chemical composition that has changed is not the fragrance or the flavours in the cup of coffee, but the emotions associated to them in our heads. Jimmy being rude has primed us while we are drinking his coffee. You tell everyone in the office that Jimmy isn’t very nice, and Matt is so lovely. Every time you take a sip of Jimmy’s coffee we are reminded of that time he was so rude to you. How can you possibly like his coffee? Now all the people in the office believe it too!

Being able to objectively taste, to be able to pick many flavours out of a cup of coffee or even just being able to know why we become emotional with certain foods is a powerful mental tool. It allows us to rationalise a situation and question our emotional beliefs. It may even just help us all to get along. I mean, someone has to like Jimmy’s coffee, right?

[gingerextractions]

A disparity in flavour

Working in a café you get to serve all the characters that the human spectrum has to offer, but regardless of how colourful someone’s personality may be there are always common biases of human nature. From statements about the weather that we obviously weren’t aware of, to how busy you are if there happens to be a queue of people waiting to order right at the point when they walk in. When it comes to ordering their coffee however, there is one question that pops up on a daily basis that can take a decent length of conversation to explain. ‘Is your coffee strong?’

I know how difficult it can be, especially when travelling, to find a cafe that makes coffee just the way you like it. With so many different blends, styles of roast and ways a barista can extract its flavour, it can be quite an anxious process trying to find some common ground. What you the customer feels should be a simple request to make the coffee as you like it, gets met with a look of disdain and dissatisfaction by the barista, and then the product comes out not as you thought you requested. It’s too milky, or the long black is too strong and bitter, or it’s overtly sour. – are they messing with me? What’s with these arrogant baristas, who do they think they are?! Tackling this single question today will help a consumer get the coffee they want and save the café staff a lot of time having to remake a coffee because we couldn’t find some common understanding of what ‘strength’ means to an individual. The first things we need to take into consideration are the origins of the coffee being used and how the coffee roaster has chosen to roast these coffees.

A single variety of Arabica coffee can taste of anything from citrus and berries to nuts and chocolate. Each one of these characteristics will taste better or worse with milk. A nutty, earthy Brazilian coffee for example, will generally compliment milk more than the wine/ berry like acidities of a Kenyan coffee. Typically the house blend of a cafe in Australia will be designed or composed of origins more suitable to compliment a decent volume of milk. Next, a coffee roaster will have different roast profiles to highlight different flavours in the coffee. As you probably know with your steak the difference in flavour from rare to well done – if you’re buying a nicely aged, highly priced cut of meat, to really appreciate the quality of the flavour of that meat, you would typically have it rare or medium rare. Subsequently, many coffee roasters buying small lots of expensive, high quality coffees try to do the same thing. By developing the coffees’ flavour just enough in the roaster to highlight that coffees unique characteristics. By pushing it any further, by roasting it any longer irrespective of the price and quality of the raw coffee, the flavours start to become homogeneous.

A helpful analogy of a style of roast is light, medium or dark. This by no means gives insight into the art and science of coffee roasting, just an aid to the general consumer as to why their coffee may taste a certain way.

Lighter styles of roast will highlight the acidity of the coffee. With the addition of milk many people will refer to this as mild or weak, sometime nutty, yet smooth and very sweet. Just be cautious if you’re a strong coffee drinker – an extra shot, or less milk to coffee ratio can result in a highly sour product. I will explain this in more detail later.

Medium styles of roast seem to be the norm for a house blend in the average Australian café, but to be honest, this is a pretty broad term. By pushing the development of the coffee flavours a little longer in the roaster you start to lower the perceived acidity and increase the bitterness. There will be a fuller, richer flavour in the milk compared with the lighter roasts. The bitterness is complimented by the sweet, rich milk, and you have less chance of any high acid origins of coffee becoming too sour when you order an extra shot.

Darker styles of roast are becoming less prevalent in our major cities. This could be for many reasons, but we won’t be exploring this today. The same trending of flavour occurs when the coffee progresses even longer in the roaster, acids are perceived less, bitterness is perceived more. With milk this will display more dark cocoa and bitter characters. Your classic ‘coffee’ flavoured coffee, with no other descriptors required.

If you like your milk coffee quite strong it’s a good idea to first ask your barista what style of roast their house blend is. As I mentioned, if they are serving a lighter style roast, and you like a double shot, this will most likely make your coffee taste more sour and unbalanced. The medium roasts will typically meet your coffee strength satisfaction. If a lighter roast is the only option, you may find a happy medium by ordering your coffee ¾ full, instead of going for the double shot, or just let the barista know you like it strong but not too sour, and see what they can do for you – they may have another option. Otherwise, be adventurous, try a long black or a filter coffee.

From here let’s look at the espresso extraction. Let’s see what a barista has to play with. You start with your ground coffee. It contains the flavour we are trying to extract. The more ground coffee we use, the more potential flavour we have to extract. Now we need to get just the right amount of flavour into an appropriate ratio of water. You know if a tea bag isn’t steeping in the water for very long the tea will taste very weak. On the other hand, we are all familiar with what happens when we put the teabag in the hot water, walk away, have a senior moment and forget that we were making tea at all. We come back, and not wanting to make another cup we always taste to see just how bad it is, hoping that the laws of nature have changed momentarily, to be yet again disappointed with our strong, bitter and overly tannic brew. Just like the tea bag, if we extract too much flavour from the coffee, we will be contributing negative characteristics to the overall flavour. Also, if we brew up two cups of tea, pour the water to the top of each and steep for the same amount of time, if one cup happens to hold less volume of water than the other, the smaller cup will taste stronger.

Before a busy day of trade, a barista tries to get these elements balanced as best they can. If you are using just one blend of coffee in your café it can be quite challenging to find a balance of flavour for all the items on your coffee menu, as what tastes balanced as an espresso may not be appropriately balanced when you add a certain amount, or a certain type of milk to the mix. More and more cafes are choosing to have multiple coffees on offer to better compensate for at least the milk and black coffee menu.

When some people ask for a strong coffee, it can be hard to determine what the customer means. Some people will associate bitterness with strength, whereas some people will ask for the coffee strong but not bitter. A common customer request is they would like a strong coffee, but they don’t want an extra shot – sometimes this is because they feel they shouldn’t have to pay the extra 50c as at some cafes they can get the strength of flavour they need without having to order the extra. Unfortunately as we discussed with the tea bag analogy, if we try to extract more flavour, we won’t be getting the good stuff, and for a barista to use more ground coffee requires quite an effort of adjusting the espresso machine and grinder settings during service, which is wasteful and time consuming. Also, this adjustment may simply not work with the blend or roast.

Sadly, even today with coffee education and information everywhere, the most common reason for a bad cup of coffee is due to a lack of routine cleaning of the espresso machine during service. There is a lot of hard work and good intentions that go into a bag of roasted coffee, and as a consumer you should be able to experience that in the quality of the flavour – it is upsetting for me when the only flavours you can taste in your coffee are of the build up residues of previously extracted coffees that go bad when they sit there for too long, basically from the lack of intent of the barista. It is just not good enough in this day and age to claim ignorance.

The perception of strength, as with many things in this world, is based on your relative experience of different coffees and what you personally have decided to associate the word with. The only real way to put everyone if not on the same page, but at least reading the same chapter of the book of flavour, we all need to be in a room together, experiencing the same things and being taught the same language.

I hope this has at least helped to bridge a gap.

[gingerextractions]

On perception

I know this is a question you ask yourselves every day. It’s certainly something that’s been bugging me for most of my life. How is it that two people, consuming the same thing, have such a difference in opinion of its quality? What in fact is quality?

The way we manifest our environment in our mind’s eye is unique to each of us. We hold beliefs of morality, quality in flavour and fashion, and impart emotions in objects. Trinkets from a holiday, a ring from a family member, a particular CD, etc.

Our language, the words we speak allows us to convey our experience to other people as best we can. The problem with conveying a personal experience with words is we can only reflect and think back about what we have seen or experienced. We all have our own personal lexicon. One word for me will evoke a different image, idea, and emotion as it would for someone else. The meaning you give when you say ‘that’s a quality cup of coffee’ is completely different to when I say the same thing. Our idea, experience, and education are very different.

If you think about it, how do you know if you are seeing the same thing as the person next to you? How could you tell if you were colour blind? We are taught as children that this is red and that is blue, and it’s true. But all we have learned is a name of what we see, not a comparative of what most people see. It may not be until we get our eyes tested that we learn that what you see as blue is actually purple for most people. This correlates to all experience. We manifest our image of the world from all our senses. We can make an example of this from our experience of flavour. We take an apple, an apple has a sensory pattern that includes its size, shape and colour, its sound when we crunch our teeth into it, the texture of its skin and flesh. There is a tart taste from the malic acid, a sweetness from its sugar, and its aromatics that will help us determine what variety of apple it is. Its subtle distinction between a granny smith, a fuji, a pink lady, that we could tell if we had our eyes closed.

We get told its name, and after a few experiences we have expectations of our individual representation of an apple. The more we eat or experience the more we know about the apples behaviour. We get a little bit more detailed in our expectation. We would then be able to tell if the apple is under or over ripe by how sweet or sour it tastes, and by its subtle change in aromatics. We can all have this experience if our senses are working. Just because we can sense it however, won’t lead us to enjoying the flavours that make up an apple. Some people will like the apple a little more sour, some will prefer it a little more ripe, and some won’t eat apples at all.

Looking at the senses a little closer we start to see that we aren’t all built the same. Our taste receptors in our taste buds, the things that react to the basic elements that we perceive as sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami, are a little different from person to person. For one, we all have a different number of taste buds and receptors. The shape of the taste bud will also influence how easy the information or how much information can reach the receptor. This means that if we have less taste buds than the average Joe, and there are less receptors that respond to say a sour taste than Joe, then not only will all the taste sensations seem softer, but the sensation of sour will be especially hard to perceive.

The next problem we encounter is that of balance. A taste by itself, especially in high concentrations, may not be all that desirable. Take for example an acid. Pure citric acid is fairly sour or tart, which to many people isn’t all that pleasant. If we add a little sugar it would sweeten the deal, but it won’t tone down the intensity of the acid. We will need to add a base, a buffer. Some salt to neutralize the acid. Now all of a sudden you will have a much more pleasant taste on your tongue.

Due to all of us experiencing each taste element slightly differently, the right balance for you won’t be the right balance for me. In my experience however we can get it pretty close to suit most people’s desires.

As you may see, our individual taste worlds can lead to certain food preferences, especially for a supertaster, who won’t be able to handle some tastes, even in mild concentrations. Taste, however, is just one slice of our sensory puzzle. It’s important to recognise that our senses are more like mechanical detectors that react to certain stimulations. Once activated a signal is sent. The encoding, recalling and interpretation process that happens in our brains is quite intricate, and for this we will look a little more closely at our sense of smell.

The mental priming I’m providing for you to help you think about memory is very basic, and by no means does it demonstrate our brain’s true complexity or workings.

The neural network from our sense of smell evokes a wonderfully rich and emotional memory of our experience. Under the right circumstances we can recall these experiences for a long time into our life span. Memories are not things like pictures or videos stored on a hard drive in specific packets of information. Memories are fallible in the sense that we are constantly rebuilding and adding to our original idea of something every time we think of it. When we try to recall a sequence of events on a holiday, it’s very easy to get different holidays confused and make false memories – it may not be until you’re recalling the event with an old friend who was with you will you realise your recollections are very different. Our tastes, ideas and ideals around certain things; flavours, smells and people, will change with repeated experience and context. Let’s use an analogy like we were looking something up on Wikipedia. Unlike normal Wikipedia, it only has our experience in there. It’s a little more complex than a standard Wikipedia page as whenever you search for something a certain subset of information will be displayed based on what mood you are in. If the emotional context that the memory was stored in is very strong, like a trauma or a moment of elation, remembering these moments are usually salient. When thinking about these emotional experiences, even subconsciously by things associated with the event, it has the ability to put you in certain moods. Emotions are a lot more complex than I’m describing, but this should provide a tool to use when thinking about memory, context and learning.

I’m sure you’ve experienced a time when you were in a fit of rage over a loved one or colleague. All the negative connotations, all the little annoying things they do that you normally ignore, all spring to the surface, to the forefront of our minds. – We can’t possibly think of them in a good light.

Let’s look up the Wikipedia of our mind for roast lamb. If we have only one experience then that’s the only thing we’ll see. Depending on our mood, there will be mood specific links on the page that will send you to different memories or associations. For example if you were in a good mood it may then remind you of other good roasted meals you’ve had. If you’re in a bad mood the links might send you to a terrible meal at your in-laws that led to you break up with your partner. As we try many different lamb roasts over the years we will have more and more imagery and understanding of what we do or don’t like about them, especially if you learn how to assemble the elements and cook it yourself – we gain a lot more intuition, insight and knowledge around what a lamb roast is. You gain an insight no other person can, well not completely. Now your lamb roast Wiki page is much more detailed and rich with information. There are many connections or associations that will get you back there too. It may just be a single chemical element that takes you to a certain lamb roast wiki page. The rosemary may take you home to the feeling of comfort from your parent’s home cooking. The sumac in the Lamb Shawarma may take you to that holiday in the streets of the Middle East. That final key, that final piece of information that unlocks the emotional context in which that memory was formed, a lot of the time, will come from smell.

This should start to demonstrate how food preferences and a culture’s idea around the quality of flavours come from. What are the ingredients that are in their immediate environment, and what Wikipedia pages have they built around them.

To sum this up in one sentence: Quality of flavour is an individual hallucination of the emotional memories around the experience that we have had with the chemical information (flavours) that comes into contact with our senses.

Travelling abroad, this may make you a little more empathetic around a cultures interpretation of how coffee should taste. You are still going to enjoy your coffee the way you like it. So when you walk into a cafe for the first time, how do you convey your flavour ideals to a qualified barista?

[gingerextractions]

A sense of quality

I remember sitting in a cafe in Paris, it was pretty cold, and I definitely wasn’t appropriately dressed for the weather. My gloveless hands were wrapped around the coffee mug, stealing every ounce of its heat. The coffee itself wasn’t brilliant, but to this day it’s one of the most enjoyable cups of coffee I’ve had. The cafe was a recommendation from a friend who knew the owner, he had worked there briefly before opening his own shop. I could have introduced myself and made the connection through my friend, and that I also work in the coffee industry in Australia, but I was cold, and was really just looking to relax, warm up and read my book. The owners of the cafe were the barista and the chef, they had all their good intentions going into creating a unique experience for the Parisians and international travellers. The menu was a mix of French and English, the customer service was warm, welcoming and very helpful – the breakfast menu reminded me of the cafes in Melbourne and Sydney, a lot of eggs and sides to choose from, but served with fresh pain des amis, which really made this special for me. I remember ordering black pudding and some mushrooms roasted in thyme on the side of my scrambled eggs. Even though it was busy, and she didn’t know my friend’s connection to the cafe, the chef especially came out of the kitchen to ask me how I was enjoying the Black Pudding, as it was the first day she was serving it to the public. Every part of me was satisfied with this experience – the coffee warmed my hands and the food reminded me of home, but it was the people and their intentions that really warmed my soul. There seems to be this notion that Australians are the most sophisticated coffee drinkers in the world. With cafes abroad promoting the fact that their Baristas are Australian trained, or the owners are Australian, it seems to work to their advantage. Has the stereotype shifted? That idea that you know what coffee is because you’re Italian, has this moved to Australia? Is there any weight in these stereotypical statements? I have worked in many facets of the coffee industry for the last 13 years, and have had the chance to travel abroad, working and serving different people and experiencing their cultural ideas around what a quality cup of coffee is for them. This perspective is from looking through my barista lens from predominantly working in highly competitive cafes all around Sydney, and reflecting on my experiences overseas. This opinion isn’t synonymous with the whole of Australia. I’m quite aware that this is certainly not the case when you visit cafes only a few hours’ drive out our major cities, but for my experience in Sydney, I would like to replace the word sophisticated with pedantic. We have cafes now offering your favourite coffee menu item with almond or coconut milk, with three options of size, at any temperature you would like – we make coffee just for you, just for your idea of what you think a cup of coffee should be. ‘May I please have a large skim latte with a sweetener? May I have it a little stronger, but I don’t want an extra shot, and just a little hotter than you normally make it.’ If you can achieve this every time for this individual, you have their business every day. ‘I love this cafe, they always make it just the way I like, and they always remember my order’… how could you forget? And if you did, you know it would come straight back to be remade the way they want it. You may have also experienced a story from this particular customer of how they travelled abroad and they just couldn’t get a good cup of coffee anywhere. They were so happy to be home, but you should go overseas and show them how to make the perfect cup. You would make a fortune! There is something nice about only serving full cream milk, and having one size in France, or just having a ‘coffee’ from a batch brew in America (if prepared with care of course). Just because it’s simple doesn’t mean the quality is absent. This may seem like I’m having a rant, but it really doesn’t bother me how people drink their coffee – it just shows that the perception of quality is personal, and our beliefs around this quality comes down to our repeated experience. These individual and cultural ideas around quality are, however, quite malleable. This is where my teaching and research lenses come on. What is my idea of a quality coffee? The warm mug of coffee I was gripping tightly in Paris was in fact not made from an espresso machine. It was a filter coffee, made from a single origin that was roasted to develop its flavours specifically for that style of brewing. Coffee for me is not a fuel, it’s a luxury that can be full of good intentions. If you study far enough, and consume enough of the beverage mindfully, a cup of coffee can present flavours that show just how conscious the roaster and barista are of the product. Just like a well-trained wine sommelier, with just a few sips they can describe a little about how the wine was made or aged, the variety of grape, and if they’re really good, where it was grown. This too, to a certain extent, can be achieved in a cup of coffee. The flavour characteristics in a well made filter coffee can highlight how the coffee was processed on the farm and where in the world it was grown. Then if you have experience with roasting coffee, you have an idea about how much of the taste is a function of the roasting process. Also, based on this product that the cafe has received, how has the barista chosen to balance these flavours for their customers? These characteristics are hardly present when you add milk, and can be more difficult to pick out when you taste something as concentrated as an espresso. Do I think espresso is bad? No. Do I think everyone should drink more straight black filter coffee? Well yes, but that’s my point, this is my bias based on my experience and education. So how do you change someone’s perception of quality? You make them conscious of it by developing a basic language around flavour – that first step in evolution from the common consumer statement, ‘I know what I like, but I don’t know how to describe its flavour’. An understandable answer when you are drinking a liquid of the same colour and texture that can taste of anything from berries, to chocolate, to lemons and the rest. It can be hard to pick out flavours when this cup of coffee doesn’t look anything like a strawberry. If you make someone just a little conscious of the basic elements of taste and how to create a balance with them, we see they are not looking for what they want their coffee to be, but they become more mindful of what they are drinking. They become open to try different things. You start to describe what you do and don’t like about this cup of coffee. You become less emotional, and more objective. Sure your friends might start to call you a snob, but just like learning that the earth is not flat, or at the centre of the universe, your idea of the world has just gotten a little broader. Your journey into flavour starts here. Does Australia have the best coffee in the world? What do you believe makes a quality coffee? I will never forget that morning in Paris at that wonderful cafe. Even though the flavour didn’t display what I know a filter coffee can, it was still the best cup I’ve had. It was just what I needed that day, an experience that was full of good, conscious intentions. This is something that is synonymous with the human experience of quality. Something that I feel can be missed more often than not in a modern Australian cafe.